ronnie

Seth the first #73 was a police paramedic vehicle a chev 4door pickup. It was replaced in 1984 by a chev suburban and some time in the 1990s they switched to ford. I will check if I have any pictures from that time

GREENBURGH Police were the first police department to employee police and dual train them as Paramedics. The program started in 1980 with 3 medics. Over the next 2 years an additional 6 medics were trained. The first 9 medics were trained at Albert Einstein school of medicine in the Bronx. Abbey Richmond ambulance service had level 3 emt and upgraded to level 4 around 1984. Yonkers PD trained police officers at White Plains hospital around that same time. Nassau County PD only had level 3 medics. I think Colonie N Y for awhile also received a federal grant in the early 1980. Today Greenburgh P D still employees police officer that are trained as medics along with civilian medics

Were do I start. I can only speak for the area that is protected by Greenburgh Police Dept., since that was my employer for 25 years. Ems was handled by the police Dept. in Greenburgh because they are many volunteer fire companies and several paid fire companies. It would not be feasible to have each company doing EMS work. As far as doing extrications again most of the fire companies were not interested in doing auto accidents. when the Paramedic program was started in 1980 again it was a federal grant that was open to any service, but only the PD applied for it. In the late 1997 when the Town of Greenburgh wanted to form a Technical rescue team the three paid fire departments did not want to be the agency running it. Greenburgh Police Department took on the lead role and was awarded the federal grant. Two of the three paid fire departments were involved in a minmial role. The volunteer departments were not able to supply the manpower for the training that was involved. For many years the fire departments did not want to get involved in EMS. With all that said in my 25 years I have worked with a lot of firefighters that were more then willing to help. Over the years the fire departments are getting more involved in EMS. I resent that the original author of this thread is making it sound like New York police departments specially there officer do not go out of there way. Again I can only speak from my own observation and say that I have seen many police officer and firefighters go above the call of duty. I think that things are changing and police and fire departments are working much closer. Thank you for letting me vent.

Best of luck to new Chief Decarlo. Chief Decarlo has been an asset to the Greenburgh Police Dept since he started 30 plus years ago. Chief Decarlo has held every rank in the police dept in his long career including Paramedic.

Wcc is in the Town Of Greenburgh, But it is a westchester County Owned Property. any crime that is committed on the grounds of the college is handled by Westchester County Police. Just to make this more confusing. All aided cases are handled by GPD and fires are handled by Fairview Fire. The mailing address for the college is Valhalla. So you can see that on an incident it can get confusing

Greenburgh P.D. Recievied it's first hurst tool Jan 1981. I think what prompted them getting the tool was an accident on Tarrytown Rd. at the intersection of Taxter Rd 11/1980. A tool was requested from any available town fire or police and it took about 30 minutes for Westchester County Parkway Police to show up. Greenburghs Tool was intially operated by the Police officer/Paramedic and was used as a one man operation. The other officers along with the fire dept would help but as far as I remeber they were not trained. By the medic's having to use the tool it took away from pt care. Greenburgh Police carried the tool in the fly car (73) till 2003 (not sure after that date) In the mid 1980 a lot of Fd in Greenburgh also purchased the hurst tool so if there was only one Paramedic and the fire dept was on the scene the Fire Depts would use there tool. If more then one medic was working it was usually a dual response., with the first unit setting up and starting the extracation and as more units arrived it was turned over to either the 2nd medic treating or the FD useing the tool. It actually worked and usually there was no rivialy and Pt care was what both the Pd & FD cared about most

Not to bring the shopping cart issue up again put I would like to set the record straight. The town of Greenburgh had a situation that Shopping carts were being taken from the stores and not returned and some of the stores did not go out and retrive the carts. The town passed an ordiance that the store owners had to have some type of plan so the carts would not leave the area of the parking lots. The carts created a hazadous condition by being left in stairwells, hallways, and on the street so it became a safety issue. The town would retrive the carts and then fine the stores. as for the police officer that retrivied the carts it was done on his own time. The city of White Plains, Port chester, Clarkstown, and I am sure many other cities have an ordiance on the books about shopping cart retrivial. so lets not get down on Greenburgh and let that particular issue rest.

Not trying to show my age but Yonkers VAC used to run a Cadillac ambulance around 1973-1977. you would be suprised with the amount or room in them and the ride was pretty smooth, of course back then we did not have half the equipment that is required today

It is great to see the old footage from 1980. That was the begining of Paramedics in the New York State area. I think the first medics started in NYC in 1976. The thing that jumps out at me from the footage is that we did not use BSI in those days. (what were we thinking). Its amazing to see that the Lifepak is still being used 28 years later.

From 1978 till around 1986 Grennburgh Police used Chev. Suburbans for there transports. At the time they were NYS legal and certified. before 1978 the transport vehicle were Ford station wagons. Around 1986 GPD recievied it's first modular ambulance

GPD had two ambulance staffed by police office EMT's on the road at all times. in the the late 1980's one ambulance (the north end vehicle #65 was pulled of the road) at that time Civillian Paramedics were hired and they then responded to the first aided case. some time in the mid 1990's the town of Greenburgh started covering all the villages in the unincorparted parts of town with ALS. Additional medics were hired so one would be in the villages and one in the town plus the police paramedic that was always on duty.(before that time if a Paramedic was needed in the villages one would respond but it was on as need bases. The one ambulance that is used by police EMT and is covering a sector has the same equipment as all other patrol cars.